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Radio
Every Wednesday, Ryan Carey tackles a different topic relating to the contemporary pop culture scene. This week he takes on the End of the World, which could be happening on Saturday ...
After hearing about Saturday's rapture on two separate, somewhat polarly opposed Philly-area radio stations (93.3 WMMR and 103.3 WPRB Princeton, which should give you an idea of how far spread the rapture-matrix has permeated), I did a search for the hashtag #rapture on handy-dandy Twitter. That's when it occurred to me...
The predicted May 21 Rapture is getting — what must be — many thousands percent more publicity from the snark-o-sphere than those good-hearted folks at Harold Camping's Family Radio Worldwide who sold their houses to drive mobile billboards around the country to tip us off about their very important event. The most common type of joke is, "what are you going to be wearing for the rapture?" followed by "x sports team beat y sports team, it really will be the end of the world." These are a variety of pseudo gallows humor, which seeks to create congruity between the extremely important, and the extremely un-important. About 60 percent of my search feed looked like this.
Another 38 percent was on the logistical implications of rapture belief. "Camping was wrong about his early '90s claim of pending rapture, his followers are gonna wish they still had houses on Sunday", or "If you're going up to heaven, could I get your collection of Hummel figurines?", or "If all the Christians get beamed up, who's going to be in all the sex scandals!" The remaining 3 percent (generously) of people are having some sort of serious, actual debate about the upcoming event.
Is there a way for advertisers to capitalize on the chain reaction of intellectual scorn, the great pan-cultural eye roll? Snakes on a Plane did it in 2006, but that was because the essential product was a movie, intended to be so-bad-it's-good. Camping's campaign was — despite the intentions of the volunteer army of new participants — a thorough success. Can you deny that you've been made aware of the rapture on May 21?
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McGuinn introduces them and the trio explains the situation: Y100rocks.com will cease to exist ... at least as a name. What won't cease is the station itself. In an unprecedented maneuver, the newly appointed "Y-Rock" is joining the "WXPN family." For the folks at Y100rocks.com, that means getting actual studio space and equipment at WXPN's digs, being able to host unlimited listeners (they currently operate with a cap), and — save for cleaning up their language and adhering to the rules of public radio — not having to change what or how they play at all. In other words, the scrappy little station is going legit. Oh, and in addition, McGuinn will get his own show on which to spin alt rock three nights a week (Wed. through Fri.) on WXPN's airwaves, meaning that for the first time since February of 2005, modern rock will be back on the air in Philly, if only for 10 hours a week.Jim McGuinn, who pioneered the new format, left for Minnesota Public Radio in 2008. As Klein reports, Josh T. Landow, who helped McGuinn in his underground version of YRock (after the shortwave plug was pulled, before the WXPN copulation) and later took over McGuinn's position, was one of six laid off by WXPN. So that leave Radio 104.5/WUBA WRFF as the only alternative station in the city.
HD Radio is a farce! http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com
That is very unfortunate. I guess it is a sign of the times. 104.5 is actually WRFF.
HD radio and laser dics? That's quite a metaphor. By that, I mean it's a bad one. :) *old* one. Early adopters of new technology have likely forgotten laser discs by now.
HD radio and laser dics? That's quite a metaphor. By that, I mean it's a bad one. :) HD radio is a new technology while the laser disc is an OLD one. Early adopters of new technology have likely forgotten laser discs by now.
HD radio works for me quite well in the Germantown section - I get WRTI and WHYY's HD-2 signal very nicely. The sound quality is at least as good and I think better than traditional FM. I'm not shilling for the seller of this unit, but here's the HD tuner I use; it's a Sony and actually one of the highest rated tuners of any time on the market today, and it's under $100. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-XDRF1HD-HD-Radio-Tuner/dp/B00168Q248 I don't know if HD radio will be the betamax of the '00s, but if you;re really devoted to hearing Y100 it's an option for now.
Yeah boooyyyyy! Now you know what a BS move that was to fire one of the few remaining local dj's that started at Y100 back in the day and cutting the programming completely off the air. How dumb. Well, Josh is still broadcasting on the Web (check out Y-Not Radio.net) and fighting this underhanded and unlawful takeover of intellectual property by the people who don't own it. Alternative terrestrial radio is dead. WXPN is dead. Radio 104.5FM is dead. NPR is going to be dead soon. Raise your hand if you are under 35 and you've listened to the World Cafe on XPN recently? Last 6 months? EVER? My point exactly. Over and out.
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Gimme the Routes, Gimme the roots
Optimistically underestimating Friday morning traffic put me at WHYY's presentation of Nick Spitzer and his Blues Breakfast fashionably late. Spitzer was fashionably quick in his delivery and wrapped it up quite a few minutes ahead of schedule. Despite the abbreviated dose, it was worth the agita of getting there. Spitzer hosts American Routes, heard locally WHYY (among 250 stations), spreading the news that if you listen carefully you can find we have more in common than you might have guessed. Spitzer specializes in segues that knit seemingly unrelated musics together ' he even mentioned of keeping a CD of his favorite segues. As a folklorist he speaks with depth as well as breadth about the common people's music.
People with long Philly radio memories will recall Spitzer during his tenure at 'MMR, where he played much the same stuff as he does today on American Routes, much to management's displeasure. Then he was known as Spencer and was the man I have to thank for introducing me to Bob Wills and western swing -what a long and rewarding romance that has been.
At WHYY it was pure pleasure to watch Spitzer unselfconsciously nodding, swaying and grinning to the pieces he played that worked in with the theme of breakfast. As usual he wove disparate musics into the stated theme, showing George Jones' country version of "then grits ain't groceries" to be a close cousin to the blues.
The Penn Alumni Weekend and an upcoming speaking gig at Kelly Writer's House on Saturday had him reflecting on his undergrad days there. "I started out at Wharton. This was 1968. I looked around me and said, 'Hey, this is not my vision of me, this is my parents vision of me.'" He moved over to anthro where he recalls the standard 3 x 5 cards with notes on cultures. Pretty dry stuff to hear him tell it. Then he started hosting shows on XPN.
"I looked over here," gesturing to the right, "and there were Folkways recordings. Over here," indicating the left, "the Nonesuch Explorer series. I decided this was the real anthropology [department] !" Spitzer went on to share a number of heartfelt beliefs about the people of this country, especially as demonstrated through regional music. Here's hoping that he'll gather them up for a special edition of the Philly version of "This I Believe" being produced at WHYY.
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